00:17:24.980Before Adpocalypse, before the bad actors such as myself, before YouTube boxing, before the diss tracks, Ray William Johnson, what was it like?0.60
00:17:33.360So certainly people weren't kicking the shit out of each other in boxing rings to, like, whatever proved their point.0.60
00:17:54.340Don't tell yourself that it's anything more than that.0.99
00:17:57.220You boxing someone in a ring is as ridiculous as us pointing a camera at ourselves and taking a selfie.1.00
00:18:02.700It's stupid and it's stupid that we make money from it, but we do.1.00
00:18:06.560I look at it like I think about it every day and I'm like, what the hell is going on?1.00
00:18:10.160I wasn't even you know how like this latest political climate people are like, what timeline are we living in?0.97
00:18:15.160I was the what timeline are we living in guy way before that because of the shit we do because I like I can't believe I get paid to do this.0.96
00:18:22.300People watch. It's crazy. It's odd. It's very super odd.0.99
00:18:47.040Have you always been this charismatic, big personality?
00:18:50.220Because that's the it factor that 99% of people striving to be YouTubers do not have.
00:18:55.680Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if I. So I go through like phases where sometime I'm like chill and relax and then sometimes I'm sort of on. And anytime that I get on camera, it's you get that like nervous energy. It's like you people say, oh, just be yourself on camera. I think it's almost impossible to be 100 percent yourself in the same way that that, you know.
00:19:19.560okay so if you went through your average day but either of you you're going through your average
00:19:23.960day now tomorrow you're going to go through your same average day but your mom's going to be looking
00:19:27.880at you the whole time it's like you would act slightly different even if you weren't trying
00:19:32.480no no be yourself no no you like even if you weren't trying to act different you would act
00:19:36.180slightly different so when the camera's on it's the same thing it's so weird it's so weird because
00:19:40.240we we have conversations all day where the jokes are slap all day boom boom and they're the kind
00:19:46.500of jokes that make people fall out of fucking chairs yeah and then when we turn the camera on0.98
00:19:49.780we're like yo how do we or for myself at least i'm like how the fuck do i get back there like0.99
00:19:54.300when the camera goes on i'm always slightly not as good as i am in just casual conversation
00:19:59.120when when a lot of people are like that dude yeah dude how many funny people do you know anyone how
00:20:04.220many hilarious people do you know in real life who just simply cannot translate it to a means
00:20:09.660of monetization such as a youtube a tiktok stand-up comedy whatever some people are just
00:20:13.600funny in real life most of the people i know who are funny in real life can't translate it to
00:20:17.220anything including stand-up including anything at all like they go to their job and you know
00:20:23.780in finance and then they go home to their wife and kids and that's that's just it they're just
00:20:27.280funny personality some of them go on to too you know what i'm saying some people you have to want0.99
00:20:31.020to be an entertainer to be an entertainer right you gotta be a little fucked up facts like you0.79
00:20:34.900gotta you gotta be like man i did i just i didn't get the validation i needed growing up and i need0.89
00:20:39.780it from all million of you yes is that i know you went through the struggle of just on that note
00:20:46.300validation from views and likes and subscribers are you past that yeah how far past that i'm
00:20:53.520assuming a while well the thing is so i've been doing this for you know what almost a decade and
00:20:58.980a half so it's sort of what i do it's not necessarily who i am but it's what i know how
00:21:04.740to do like i know how to do social media stuff i know how to monetize it i know how to make money
00:21:09.720I know how to, like, keep adding to your catalog so that the bigger your catalog gets, you'll always be churning out revenue.
00:24:28.040So it was it was far away from, you know, my my mom and all that that I could be.
00:24:34.280And it took me about three months to realize that this was not a good idea because this guy was this guy was a drunk, like a really bad alcoholic.
00:24:46.240So he was an addict. He smoked weed all the time, which is not a huge deal, except that he never had a job the entire time I was there.
00:24:53.140nor did he have one years before or after he lived off his he moved off his girlfriend who
00:24:57.560actually did have a job yeah um he did a lot of meth and when i say he was abusive
00:25:02.760he would smack around his girlfriend and my half sister who was from a different family right so
00:25:11.240she lived there too so he would smack them around like get super drunk and violent he i remember0.62
00:25:16.180one day he picked up a like one of those big ass mason jars of loose change and threw it at his
00:25:21.980girlfriend's head like full of change you know how heavy that is and it's shattered on the wall0.83
00:25:26.120he took a uh like a wooden broom and he speared it through the wall throwing it at his girlfriend0.98
00:25:32.460holy shit like speared it into the sheetrock like dude was super violent right and i was young
00:25:37.680enough to know like i watched he was never abusive to me and i don't know why probably because my0.98
00:25:42.480biological grandfather would have destroyed him because he was a mean old man but he was never
00:25:47.740abusive to me so i just had to watch everyone else go through it and i was young enough to know that
00:25:52.240it was wrong but i wasn't i wasn't old enough to know that i could actually do something about it
00:25:58.080by like telling the police or telling a teacher i was like well there's nothing i can do so the
00:26:03.680school year finished and i moved back with my i was like mom i want to come back she's like yeah
00:26:08.160i thought this would happen come back and um i went back and like i've appreciated my mom ever
00:26:12.860sense because then i realized oh our petty disagreements were were just nonsense yeah
00:26:17.440but i told myself man i'm i'm never talking to that guy again he is a nightmare so three years
00:26:24.940after that i still hadn't talked to him he he has my social security number he has all my bank
00:26:30.540account information he goes into one of my my bank accounts and he took out all the money and
00:26:36.120like it that was the bank account that was for my college tuition now realistically there was
00:26:43.100only like 2500 bucks in there but that was all the money in the world to me and that was going
00:26:47.560to pay for my freshman year of college and he straight swiped it and i told myself again i'm
00:26:55.280never never talking to this guy like he's he's the worst of the worst like every story i hear about
00:27:00.860him it just gets worse and worse so 10 years after that maybe eight years after that I still
00:27:07.120hadn't talked to him he hadn't reached out or anything like that no no amends no I'm sorry0.99
00:27:12.380anything like that I get a call from my half sister the one that I watched him beat the shit
00:27:18.140out of her and she's like hey I want to let she's she's roughly my age but she's like hey I want to
00:27:23.160let you know I'm getting married I'm calling everyone around you know everyone in the family
00:27:26.440and letting them know and I was really happy for her and the guy she was with was like really nice
00:27:30.300and all that and i you know i asked him like hey i haven't i haven't talked to dad i'm any updates
00:27:35.800on him like is he still alive is what's going on with him she's like yeah i uh i took my fiance to
00:27:42.740go to his trailer to visit him because you know that's you know you introduce your fiance to your
00:27:48.220parents and he's technically my parent and she didn't have a good relationship with him after
00:27:52.700she left either so she goes to introduce her fiance to him and my dad was like falling over
00:27:59.760drunk and he knew she was coming this wasn't a surprise visit and he's so wasted that he hits on
00:28:07.820her like he made a pass at his own biological daughter in front of her fiance and her fiance0.99
00:28:16.760i think almost kicked his ass but but again it was just another story that i was like i'm never0.99
00:28:22.920talking to this guy again i'm like every step of the way i'm like i'm so glad that i never0.98
00:28:26.500rekindled that relationship so here's where it gets interesting it's already pretty interesting
00:28:31.380so back in maybe 2014 i get a call from my mom my mom's like hey uh i just want you to know i got
00:28:40.340an update on your dad that you want to hear i'm like all right whatever mom what is that low life
00:28:44.840doing she's like well he has cancer and yeah i'm like oh jesus that's wow you know my bad i didn't
00:31:03.020And so I got this idea that I'm going to start a brand.
00:31:06.860Now, do you know how brands represent their product, but they also represent something more like Nike.
00:31:11.960They make shoes, but they represent like sport, right?
00:31:15.360And Coca-Cola represents like classic America, not just soda.
00:31:19.460so my idea was i was going to make this brand and this brand was going to represent helping people
00:31:25.700and helping yourself somehow somehow i'm going to make that work so i started a show a couple
00:31:31.200months back i just wrapped the first season um and put it on all the platforms i started the the you
00:31:37.000know there's like a facebook account and instagram account all stuff that like just launched and it's
00:31:41.220all geared around self-development now is that superhuman it is superhuman and people you know
00:31:48.360people ask me like well you know is i going to make money like well money is like the the tramp
00:31:54.180stamp of this conversation it's it's secondary i want to help people there are other ways i make
00:31:58.360money i'm doing fine in that department i've been doing this long enough right so that's the story
00:32:03.800that is the most important story i have ever heard on impulsive that that was incredible that was
00:32:11.300bro i'm glued i'm even emotional just like thinking about the story that you just told
00:32:18.600um i was i was wondering what you were gonna say you did when it was at the uh the cusp the
00:32:26.900precipice um it was hard i mean obviously i still think about it for sure for sure for sure
00:32:31.940i was gonna ask is do you do you regret that at all do you regret not not not visiting him
00:32:37.380I don't. I don't. But I still think about what would have happened had I gone. I think if I had gone, I think I would be mad at myself. I'd be like, man, I, I gave that. I gave him exactly what he wanted. And I, and he didn't learn the lesson that I feel like I want to learn from that, which is like, sometimes there's no going back. Sometimes when you, when you screw over people that really care about you and your well-being, like that is it.
00:33:02.360That is a, that is a very grave, very serious, very heavy example.
00:33:07.040But we in this house have been revolving around the word describing the scenario, which is0.95
00:33:13.160accountability, accountability, like accountability is, is so fucking huge.
00:33:17.700And I think our generation will carry that so much with so much more weight than, than0.69
00:33:26.160the previous ones, because especially with social media, people are being held accountable
00:48:08.940same yeah like he's he's so both of us he's so funny to watch yeah it's all the democrats
00:48:14.240facts don't care about your feelings yeah yeah like he's that guy and and uh coincidentally
00:48:20.080enough uh about two weeks ago i had this voice acting gig and they were like can you do a ben
00:48:25.280shapiro it's like yeah i can try so i had to i had to they don't want me like talking about it too
00:48:30.240much i can't give it too much away but i had to rap a comedy rap as ben shapiro so again the
00:48:37.300producers probably won't be saying any more than that but at some point a ben shapiro rap
00:48:40.860is coming out amazing that's incredible dude i um i was going to pick up some records i had bought
00:48:45.980a record player recently and i was in i think it was like sherman oaks or something i was walking
00:48:51.200down the street and ben shapiro comes out of a restaurant randomly after being on our podcast
00:48:54.520he's like oh good what's up how you doing and so he doesn't sound like magically he has the same
00:48:58.480voice as my mom as robin he's mickey mouse all of a sudden i don't uh thank you danny and um
00:49:04.460Just like someone saw me at a casino in Vegas the other day and they tweeted like, you know, Logan Paul is like the most normal, normal looking dude just like walking around the casino.
00:49:14.400When Ben Shapiro is not like on, not doing a podcast, not talking about politics and he's holding his kid outside of a restaurant, just having a conversation.0.97
00:49:21.760Dude, he's the happiest, go lucky, jovial son of a bitch I've ever seen in my life.0.92
00:49:25.860You know, it was a no, it was cool.0.95
00:49:27.520It's cool to see on camera personality and then these people off camera because there is a massive difference sometimes.
00:49:33.740Yeah. You know, this guy from the Young Turks, the I do not. Yeah, that's the one. You know who I'm talking about? He's the main guy. Yeah, he's the guy. He's the guy you would recognize. Yes, I know him. But I've had lunch with him on a couple of occasions for several different reasons. And as political as he is on his show, we never talked about politics. It just never came up and had conversations about anything else.
00:49:58.640and i if i didn't know that that's the kind of show he does i would never peg him as political
00:50:03.840yeah and he's also like a really great dude like he's a really cool guy to sit down and
00:50:08.100have lunch it's nuts how much just like turn it off agree so dude i i actually your girlfriend
00:50:14.260david and i were talking i do not consider the girl i know can we say her name or no could we
00:50:20.020should we call her stephanie oh yeah give her the fake name an arbitrary name of stephanie
01:01:12.740If you show that contract to 100 people on the street, they would say no because they're asking for everything and not giving anything, which is not a big deal.0.99
01:01:19.100I get offered things all the time and I go, no, because it's not – that's not in my best interest.
01:01:23.260but what the problem was is they were helping me produce these things and they their um ceo who
01:01:29.220was you know a lot younger than he's probably in his 40s now he's in his 30s then but he was kind
01:01:33.700of a hothead and he was kind of a bro and he was then he started trying to strong arm me he's0.98
01:01:40.360basically like hey man if if you don't sign this we're gonna break your fucking knees we're gonna0.99
01:01:46.060well we're gonna cut off your legs we're gonna cut off like uh yes like once your leg's gone0.99
01:01:52.580yeah exactly exactly so we're gonna cut off production to to everything that we're working0.99
01:01:57.800on right so you need to sign this or we're gonna shut your shows down i'm like well you can't shut
01:02:02.380my shows down because you don't one of them you don't own at all right and if you shut the other
01:02:06.480one down it's just gonna hurt you and uh and i didn't i was like whatever you're not gonna do
01:02:11.340that and then they did then they shut down production yeah no they did they called they
01:02:15.560called my bluff and i was like oh my god so i had to start filming out of my house like so that i
01:02:20.060wouldn't miss an episode or whatever and i was like all right because i don't i don't get into
01:02:23.840drama and i don't i especially don't fight publicly because i don't get into the thing
01:02:28.520where i'm like oh i'm so mad at him and i want everyone to see us you know fight it out on
01:02:32.860that's that's not my thing live on the zone yeah exactly that's not my thing right so i didn't say0.98
01:02:39.740anything i was like all right just just whatever they they are dicks and move on and do your own0.97
01:02:44.380thing you'll be fine you've always been a self-starter you'll you'll keep going but then0.99
01:02:48.860the ceo i don't know why he did it i think he did it just to be a dick but he put out a press
01:02:55.000statement that basically said we uh dropped ray from our roster what the and it made me look0.60
01:03:00.980really bad not not that i quit and left which i did but basically that they severed ties with me
01:03:07.000because they were i think trying to jump out in front of the story and so immediately my social
01:03:11.340media is blowing up with like oh why did they drop you uh what did you do wrong and all this
01:03:15.620stuff and i was like all right so i at least need to put my story out there so i wrote an op-ed and
01:03:19.960i'm a pretty good writer like if i hadn't gone into other forms of entertainment i probably would
01:03:24.140have written so i write an op-ed and i give it to like the only blog that i know of and i don't
01:03:32.240even know if that blog's still around nor do i remember the name but i just remember having a
01:03:35.240contact with someone so i give this blog hey man will you publish this and anyone who searches my
01:03:38.980name can see the the real the real story and i said in fact here's a copy of that contract that0.95
01:03:44.660they offered me and you can put it right next to it so that people know i'm not full of shit0.56
01:03:48.460but i don't know if anyone's gonna find it and he put it up and it went viral like0.89
01:03:52.600within a few hours wow like everyone is sharing it because it made them look really bad at least
01:03:59.040everyone in my bubble was sharing it and it made them look really bad well then um the ceo
01:04:06.000the hothead like reads it and he he texts me and he says something along the lines of i'm breaking
01:17:56.800I feel like I feel like I feel like it's the ones who almost and could be great and like top tier that get offended because they're still in like that phase where you maybe have to put on an ego to embody the role of what it means to be they're in the they're in the fake it part of the fake it till you make it exactly and these ones all have made it but they don't give a fuck okay they're all doing their thing I think it's because they're in a bubble to be honest I mean that I think they're surrounded by people who know them and like them and
01:18:26.780give them shit and treat them a certain way and then suddenly they step out of the bubble and it's0.99
01:18:30.740like oh no i maybe i've seen you i'm not really sure i don't really watch and they're like oh but1.00
01:18:34.860this is bullshit yeah i can't believe oh you haven't seen my toy unboxing podcast i'm ryan's
01:18:40.780toy time it's one podcast one whole podcast dedicated to one toy and that is us you haven't0.98
01:18:46.260seen it no dude sorry i'm so sorry i have no idea what you're talking about do you think part of the
01:18:52.180reason why they uh are as big as they are is because they wouldn't get offended or don't get0.91
01:18:57.080offended when people don't know who they are like they don't get offended by shit so easy because0.92
01:19:01.120how much does thick skin contribute to uh overall success on the internet i mean it's it's everything0.96
01:19:07.240that's that's part of what my um that's part of what my ted talk was going to be about was dealing
01:19:12.140with fear of judgment and and so important everyone naturally has a fear of of judgment
01:19:18.360to some degree it's like we're hardwired for it and i can get into the science of it but i don't
01:19:22.320have to but everyone's naturally hardwired for that so when it takes a special kind of crazy
01:19:28.380to put yourself in a position where you're on stage or you're on camera and you're you're in
01:19:33.140a situation where more people are going to judge you openly than they would uh in a normal scenario
01:19:39.840and it yeah you got to be a little nuts to sort of want that right to bring it upon yourself right
01:19:44.900Like to bring it upon yourself and then to have to deal with it and then put that face
01:20:23.280But so 10 – about 10 years ago, I watched – there was like a video someone sent to me, and it was about me, and I watched it, and it was a fan.
01:20:33.000And I want to say it was some young girl, and she was like, Ray's amazing.
01:20:36.740He's the most amazing person in the world.